Young Anabaptist Radicals

Author Archive: Miriam

DNC Artistic Political Convergence

Hey all, long time no… something. Thought I’d let you know about this in case any of you were coming to Denver for the DNC. Cheers.

The LIDA Project, artistic curators of BINDERY | space in downtown Denver, will be opening it’s doors to artists and activists for an artistic political convergence during the week of Democratic National Convention and is issuing a call for entries. LIDA is seeking actors, writers, directors, performance artists, puppeteers, dancers, poets, musicians, seasoned troupes and emerging theater groups to perform their shows and participate at the DNC Convergence Center at BINDERY | space, an intersection of political activism and artistic insight. 


Virtually any type of performance is welcome to apply. Categories include: cabaret, comedy, dance, drama, improvisational, magic, multimedia, musical theater, performance art, puppetry, storytelling, variety, burlesque, sideshow, street theater, spoken word, and other creative madness. Performances with relevant political context will be given priority.

The Convergence dates are 22 August — 29 August, 2008. Visit www.lida.org for information. Please send a brief proposal of your project to lida at lida dot org. Include the title, a short description of what you intend to do, number of performers and technical staff, and any other technical requirements.

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BINDERY | space
Once a book bindery in function, this warehouse in the heart of downtown is a reincarnated new urban art space for performance of all kinds. BINDERY | space, curated by The LIDA Project, envisions a local home for national and local performing and multimedia artists on the edge. Fresh and experimental, BINDERY | space will foster artists and events that promise to challenge, incite, and inspire.


August 12, 2008 activism, Art, Awesome Stuff, Community, Current Events, Fun, Politics, President, Theatre Read more >

YAR 2.5

We did a bit of updating on the back end of this here radical blog. You’ll notice it if you log in. We’ve gone all 2.5, but it took a bit to work out the kinks. Sorry if we had you worried. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on the latest. If you notice anything suspicious, let us know. Anything. Especially unattended baggage.

April 4, 2008 Meta (YAR) Read more >

What’s happening in Gaza?

This is another proxy-post by Rich, written for CPTnet and copied here with permission:

North American media have again found one of their favorite stories in the fighting between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza — Palestinians bent on killing, incapable of arranging their political lives without massacres. Without claiming to have the complete story, I can at least interject some additional perspectives that call for deeper interpretation. For example, I saw Fatah and Hamas legislators in Hebron walk arm-in-arm down Ain Sara Street, on a day when five of their colleagues died in a gun-battle in Gaza. OK, at least that says that Hebron is not Gaza. But what is behind the fighting in Gaza?

Last week in Gaza, Hamas fighters finally drove Fatah fighters out of the Office of Preventive Security — that’s a police headquarter building, basically. Maybe North American reporters have forgotten that there was an election in Gaza and the West Bank early in 2006 — by all accounts a free, fair, multiparty democratic election. The voters chose new government, Hamas, by an overwhelming majority. Now, another way to describe this result would be to say that the electorate “sent the Fatah incumbents packing.” At least, in most places, it would mean that. But in this case the United States government objected to the choice of the Palestinian voting public, and acted in a variety of ways to stop the incumbent party from handing over the institutions of government to the winning party. So the Fatah legislators, bureaucrats and officials did not pack up — they stayed. That’s why they were still there in control of this police station more than a year later.
(more…)

July 2, 2007 Foreign Policy, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Media, Palestine, Peace & Peacemaking Read more >

Young (White) Anabaptists Radicals?

Debbie Says:

How many young adults of color are authors on this blog??? Think about it. This should be called YWAR – Young White Anabaptists Radicals.

There are some, though you might not know it from the pseudonyms, and I’m sure it isn’t representative.

There’s also a good post on a related topic from Skylark earlier called How do we get the straight white men to shut up?. Here is another place to talk about it:

June 12, 2007 Meta (YAR), Race Read more >

Bad God

As I read through various YAR posts the other morning, I was struck with a realization about God. More accurately, a realization about my belief in, and loyalty to God. Here it is:

If God really is a white male hetero-bigot he can shove it for all I care.

That’s right. Not my God. I’ll take damnation over worshiping that crap.

So where does that leave us?

Fortunately that’s not the God I believe in, and so I can move forward with faith in a God that loves creation and all that it is. (more…)

June 11, 2007 Ethics, God, Hate, Loyalty, Theology Read more >

Supreme Court Hates Women

From the New York Times: Justices Limit Discrimination Suits Over Pay.

From 2001 to 2006, workers brought nearly 40,000 pay discrimination cases. Many such cases are likely to be barred by the court’s interpretation of the requirement in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that employees make their charge within 180 days “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.”

In a vigorous dissenting opinion that she read from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others.

According to NPR, one of the cases cited as “precedence” for this ruling has been overturned by congress. If you find the details, link it up.

May 30, 2007 Bias, Bigotry, Current Events, Fair, Gender, Privilege, Sexism Read more >

Papal Excuses: The indigenous were asking for it.

I don’t have the time to comment on this as well as I should. But I think it’s worth pointing to:

Pope’s Opening Address for Latin America and Caribbean ‘Aparecida’ Conference.

It gives me great joy to be here today with you to inaugurate the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, which is being held close to the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, Patroness of Brazil. I would like to begin with words of thanksgiving and praise to God for the great gift of the Christian faith to the peoples of this Continent.

The problems here are fairly obvious, I think. It’s a frustrating follow-up to his comments on the excommunication of pro-choice legislators in Mexico City.

May 14, 2007 Excommunication, Indigenous, Pope, Roman Catholic Read more >

EXCERPT from “Chosen: biblical texts, group identity and peacemaking.”

Convo talk for Bethel College (Kansas) November 13, 2006 by Rich Meyer

[Rich sent this to me, and not having time to post it himself, I am posting it for him. Here’s a few quotes to whet your appetite:]

Part of my concern here is with how we process the diversity of voices within the canon — this collection of books that we today call “The Bible,” (singular) as if it were one book. In Greek, Ta Biblia is plural, it means “the books.” What we call “the Old Testament” (singular, again) Jews call “the Law, the Prophets and the Writings.” Names are important, how we name things carries a lot of freight. We all know that the Bible is a collection, a library, and includes a number of voices, voices often engaged in debate. I think it would help our understanding if our vocabulary gave us that picture. Instead we’ve got it all wrapped up in a leather cover.

I think we have wanted to stop short of talking openly and honestly within the church about the implications of this diversity of voices, and what it means if we want to study with intent to get direction. Because that requires us to commit, to weigh in on the Bible’s internal debates. Failing this, we are stuck defending some really damaging racism and sexism, just because it is between leather covers. Rabbi Michael Lerner names it thus: he says that we have, in the Torah, the voice of God, and the voice of accumulated pain and hurt.

[The full lecture, after the jump.] (more…)

May 8, 2007 Chosenness, Church, Group Identity, Interpretation, Language, Peace & Peacemaking, The Bible Read more >

“Sex” – More on bigoted language

Why is there so much talk about “sex” around here? What is this “sex” thing that we are saving for marriage? And what is this marriage thing?

The whole conversation is based in hetero norms and assumptions. Dictionary.com mainly defines “sex” the way we talk about “gender.” It also links to Coitus, which it defines as hetero intercourse – a penis penetrating a vagina. According to all that, I don’t have any gay friends who have ever had sex (coitus) in their lives (though most have had sex (gender) since birth or soon after).

So much for promiscuity. By hetero norms, Gay and Lesbian people are generally celibate, and it all gets confusing when you start talking Trans-gendered.

And don’t say “you know what we mean” because I don’t. Where’s the line? What’s the definition? Holding hands? Kissing? Petting? Nudity? Orgasm? Genital to genital contact? It’s not only a continuum without clear delineations, it doesn’t all even line up. Which is worse, clothed orgasm or nudity without touching? What about orgasm without touching? Where is oral or anal sex in the mix? What makes them more “sex” than, say, petting? There is no answer. Coitus is a hetero concept, and a false delimiter.

Language is important.

And then you have marriage. (more…)

May 3, 2007 Bigotry, Language, LGBTQ, Sex Read more >

R?

There has been some concern about the Y in our name being exclusive to aging Anabaptist Radicals. Of course, all three of the letters are meant to narrow down the target contributers. Interesting to me is the breakdown of how much we care about each letter. According to an earlier poll, we care most about the A, quite a bit less about the R, and almost not at all about the Y.

There’s a lot of talk on here about being Anabaptist. As that is what differentiates us from all the other young radical blogs out there, I won’t act too surprised. But I am a little surprised. The R seems fairly central to why this blog exists. Or am I wrong? As a founder, I know that was a main reason for starting it – a forum for radicals among the Anabaptists. The Y and A were more descriptive of ourselves and our context (we were all young Anabaptists) than purpose in my mind.

What about that R? Does it matter to you? Are you radical? What makes you radical? Would you join a YAM for moderates or a YAC for conservatives? Do you care?

April 23, 2007 Blog, Meta (YAR) Read more >

get your schism on!

There’s a lot of talk about wanting to be a church open to people who disagree. On the one hand that sounds like a great idea, on the other hand where does it end? How do we define ourselves as a church? Even assuming a model with more focus on central mission than fringe cases, how do you keep your mission strong while remaining somewhat democratic and having such divergent members? How do you keep it strong after, say, 500 years of people joining the denomination for no other reason than they grew up in it? What does it mean to be a “historic peace church” once you are left with only a minority in the church claiming that all war is sin (see the recent church member profile conducted by MCUSA). Who cares what we are historically, if we’re something different now?

Here’s the point:

If we believe in a church with differing voices, and are opposed to schism, why have a Mennonite church at all? Why not just add to the diversity of a mainline protestant denomination? Why not reunite with Catholicism to create the Ultimate Diverse Universal Christian Super-Church?

OR

If we believe there are things worth splitting over, and reasons to have a distinctly Anabaptist or even more distinctly Mennonite church, what issues are worth it? Why not split over ordination of women? Why not split over beliefs about war? Why not split over acceptance and support of GLBT people? These all seem like fairly important issues to me, much more so than coat buttons or the mustache or even child baptism. You wouldn’t include white-supremacists in a civil rights organization just for the diversity of opinion, so why include militants or homophobes in a peace church?
(more…)

April 18, 2007 Church, Exclusion, Schism, Tolerance Read more >